The
U.S. military has made no secret of its vision to field an ever
increasing number of automated and unmanned vehicles onto the
battlefield. The use of these vehicles reduces the risk to human life
and without a human aboard the vehicle, the design can be better
optimized for the mission.

The military has used unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) for as long time for long-range recon
and for attacking ground targets. The UAVs allow surveillance
missions to last longer and UAVs can also be made smaller than
aircraft that require a human pilot onboard. The U.S. military is
also looking to field
robotic soldiers to replace human soldiers in areas of high
conflict. Robots are already used in the military for searching out
bombs and infiltrating tight quarters where the danger is too high
for a human.

Unmanned vehicles may soon come to the oceans of
the world as well thanks to a new DARPA project that will introduce
unmanned frigates for long missions that closely and overtly shadow
enemy diesel-electric submarines. The vessels are dubbed
Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessels or
ACTUVs.

The program is detailed in a long document from DARPA
that outlines an industry day conference that is unclassified and set
to be held on February 16, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia. The purpose
of the program is to build an "X-ship" that is capable of
operating without any human on board at any point in its operations
cycle. The program is also seeking
to demonstrate how viable a system under "sparse remote
supervisory control" will be. A final goal of the program is to
demonstrate the anti-submarine capability of the vessel along with a
suite of sensors for the craft. The ship is designed for global
independent deployment for months at a time with no human interaction
onboard.

The DARPA
ACTUV industry day paper [PDF] points out that the unmanned
craft are intended to be launched and recovered from manned ships and
teleoperated from manned ships and will be limited to direct support
of manned missions. A key to the program is a demonstration that the
unmanned vehicle can navigate safely at sea within the framework of
maritime law and International Regulations for Avoiding Collisions at
Sea.

The program is also expected to allow naval architects to
revise the design of surface craft offered by the ability to
eliminate all crew concession from the ship design. DARPA reports
that the design may have relaxed reserve buoyancy margins, dynamic
stability limits, and new platform orientation assumptions.
Basically, the program will allow ship designers to remove all
performance and design constraints placed on a surface vessel that
has to carry human occupants. The platform must have a sufficient
range for theater or global deployment and a speed, endurance, and
maneuverability advantage over its target set. The design must also
be able to tolerate rough seas effectively and be capable of
near-term transition to operational employment.

DARPA will
conduct the program in four phases. Phase one will be a concept
exploration, system architecture studies, system concept design, and
preliminary performance evaluations. Multiple awards will be given to
participants ranging from $500,000 for concept studies or limited
architecture to $2,000,000 for a full system concept design and
operations analysis.

Phase two of the program is anticipated
to fund one award through Critical Design Review and have a duration
of 18 months. Phase three will be to build an integrated prototype
vessel and conduct initial sea trials and is expected to have a
duration of 18 months. Phase 3 will be awarded as a firm-fixed-price
option. Phase four will be to conduct mission-oriented sea trials and
experiments. The final phase will be followed by full transition of
subsequent test and acquisition activity to the Navy.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

... Because most people on this planet are terrorists and not curious children or clueless fishermen. Blowing up as many people and things as possible for no good reason whatsoever is the fastest road to world peace, and the world waits with bated breath for the US to lead the way.

Apart from my sarcasm, I'm not even sure I understand the pressing need for chasing down enemy submarines. How many hostile nations have submarines?

This technology could be of much better use such as for weather predictions like someone else mentioned.